I AM DISGUSTED

Usually I am in favor of dialogue to resolve differences, but to all those people out there whining because the President of the United States wants to tell their school children to work hard and stay in school, get over it. Presidents have been talking to school children for as long as I can remember, which is a long time. My very first memory was of President Eisenhower when I was in the third grade.

Just a few examples:

Ronald Reagan took questions from high school students at the White House in 1986, and the question-and-answer session was broadcast nationally. Reagan urged the students to stay in school and say no to drugs, but he also discussed overtly political matters, such as national defense funding, nuclear disarmament and -- in suprising policy detail -- taxes.

President George H.W. Bush gave an address to schools nationwide in 1991, from a junior high school in Washington, D.C. News reports from the time said the White House hoped that the address would be shown at schools nationwide, and Bush began his remarks by saying he was talking to "millions" of students "in classrooms all across the country."

And in the interest of fairness, I will not use the most famous of the George W. Bush pictures, but he made many school visits to gain support for his, in my opinion very ill-conceived, no-child-left-behind programs.


I am especially disgusted with those people who claim to be upholders of the constitution and then violate the constitution by not recognizing that Barack Hussein Obama is the constitutionally elected President of the United States. In other words, no matter how much you dislike and or disagree with him and his policies, HE IS YOUR PRESIDENT. So stop whining and talk with your children about the significance of what he has to say and how all of us need to be working together to get the country through these troubled times. We have too many real problems to waste time on trivial issues like this.

Hey McCain, Shutup!

I realize an opening like that is not appropriate in this day of political correctness. And after all McCain is a "real American hero." But I have to agree with Mitchell Bard in his article, "It's Time for the "Deregulators" Like McCain to Step Aside and Shut Up" For some reason all of the people in Washington who are responsible for the economic "CF" keep talking like they think they can now dictate the terms of the solution. It's bad enough that we have to let Bush in, but there is no way congress should allow them to say what kind of "clean bill" they want. Congress needs to have the (I would say balls but that would be sexist) intestinal fortitude to pass a bill with oversight and tax payer protection and dare the shrub to veto it. Then the shrub and his twin can go sit out in Arizona or Texas and watch the sun go down and keep their damn mouths shut. Where does John McCain think he gets the credibility to demand "oversight" and "regulation" now after an entire career of fighting "oversight" and "regulation." So once again I say.

Hey McCain, Shutup!!

Eight Years of Lies Is Enough

I have been upset for the last couple of years because no one on a national level, whether politician or media pundit was willing to tell the truth about George Bush and John Cheney. The flat truth is that they lied about the situation in Iraq in order to get support for their stupid war. And they have continued to lie in order to keep the American people from totally revolting against them. I lost all respect for several people at high levels in government for not only refusing to call a lie a lie but continuing to support the Bush war even though they knew it was based on lies. Among these are Condolezza Rice, Joe Lieberman, and sure enough John McCain. I don't care how much they think the war was a good idea. It was based on lies that Bush and his cronies told to the American people.

And now, John McCain and Sarah Palin evidently think if Bush could get away with it regarding the war, they can get away with it in the campaign. And even after the truth is told they keep telling the lies, evidently thinking that if they just keep saying it, people will eventually believe them. One reallyobvious big lie is that Sarah Palin was against the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere." She supported it from the beginning of her statewide political career until it was obvious that it was making Ted Stevens the laughingstock of the Senate. Then even after she canceled the project, she kept the $200+ million for other pet projects in Alaska including a new road that led to the place the bridge was supposed to be.

John McCain lied when he said Barack Obama had not introduced any legislation. John McCain lied when he said he was the lobbyists worst enemy. Sarah Palin lied when she said BarackObama had asked for a billion dollars in earmarks in one year. Sarah Palin lied about her own requests for "earmarks" both as a mayor and as a governor. Sarah Palin lied about her involvement in the troopergate scandal. I was amazed just this morning when one of her old exercise buddies said on Good Morning America that if there is one thing Sarah Palin is, it is honest.

Of course, the BIG LIE concerns John McCain himself. Far from being a proponent of change, he is a major part of the problem in Washington. George Bush along with his republican allies in congress has come close to destroying the American economy in the last eight years and we haven't even begun to pay for the war yet.

I do not understand how anyone can honestly support John McCain and Sarah Palin in the current election. Their campaign is filled with lies from beginning to end. My only conclusion is that the purported 46-48% of Americans who are supporting the liars McCain and Palin are blind, stupid or just plain evil.

This is not a lie. It's 133 days until the end of the Bush disaster and America cannot stand one more day of the same failed policies, much less four more years. If you really care about this country, look at the records, look at the evidence and tell John McCain to pick one of his houses to go hide in and tell Sarah Palin to go back to Alaska. They elected her, they can have her.

Sarah Palin, Too Little Too Late

Since I've already discussed her absolute lack of qualifications to be vice president of the United States, (except of course for her membership in the PTA as noted elsewhere) I won't comment much more about the Too Little part of this article. What is really tragic is that she will be Too Late. Too Late for the Bush whitehouse where she would have fit right in. The more I read about the Wootengate fiasco the scarier it gets. There are a multitude of articles available about this, but the one with the most cogent arguments is from talkingpointsmemo.com

Getting Real About Palin

The final paragraph of the article sums up the problem for us:

We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. It's called an abuse of power. There is ample evidence that Palin used her power as governor to get her ex-brother-in-law fired. When his boss refused to fire him, she fired his boss. She first denied Monegan's claims of pressure to fire Wooten and then had to amend her story when evidence proved otherwise. The available evidence now suggests that she 1) tried to have an ex-relative fired from his job for personal reasons, something that was clearly inappropriate, and perhaps illegal, though possibly understandable in human terms, 2) fired a state official for not himself acting inappropriately by firing the relative, 3) lied to the public about what happened and 4) continues to lie about what happened.

These are, to put it mildly, not the traits or temperament you want in someone who could hold the executive power of the federal government.

Look again at that opening sentence: "We rely on elected officials not to use the power of their office to pursue personal agendas or vendettas. " Like I said, she would have fit right in with the Bush/Chaney/Rove/Libby/ etc. ad nauseum gang.

Having Your Cake and Eating It Too

The Bush so-called "Justice Department" is getting to have things both ways. First they violate the rules then they claim that resolving that problem would violate the rules. First one attorney general, who should never have been approved, gets his hirlings to fill all the available US attorney slots with card-carrying conservatives in clear violation of civil service laws. Then the next attorney general covers for him, first acknowledging that people were hired in violation of the law but refusing to remove them because they did nothing wrong and in his words, "Two wrongs do not make a right. People who were hired in an improper way didn't themselves do anything wrong."

That is the kind of convoluted thinking we have come to expect from bush appointees, but one always hopes that one of these days we will get an attorney general who believes justice is more than just the name of his department. Thank goodness we only have to suffer through this for another 160 days.

This will probably just become another bullet point in all of those coming lectures about why George Bush will go down in history as one of America's worst presidents. And for some reason there are still fools out there supporting him. How can they do that, are they blind, stupid, or just plain evil. I don't see any alternatives.

Someone finally gets it right--Iraq invasion was f*cking stupid

Someone with Whitehouse connections has finally gotten it right about the war in Iraq.

Iraq invasion was f*cking stupid!

David Kilcullen, a counter-terrorism expert from Australia, who is now an adviser to Condoleezza Rice, called the decision to invade Iraq "stupid" -- in fact, he said "f*cking stupid." He goes on to say, "The biggest stupid idea was to invade Iraq in the first place."

Kilcullen's comments are printed by The Washington Independent from a draft copy of A Counterinsurgency Guide for Politicos-Eighth in a Series: The Rise of the Counterinsurgents. This manual is be prepared to help those involved in policy making to have the same kind of understanding that the military does. It is intended for "Cabinet-level" officials and their staffs.

Among the novel concepts included in the manual are:

• negotiations are a two-way street in counterinsurgency


• integrate civilian and military agencies into a concerted strategy


• intervening to support an oppressive, authoritarian or abusive government against an insurgency is extremely problematic


• it is folly to intervene . . . unless there is a reasonable likelihood that the affected government will cooperate


• and a really novel idea (at least for the Bush Whitehouse) RESPECT PEOPLE

Since this is draft, one must wonder how much of this will make it into the published version. I seriously doubt that the "f*ucking stupid" comment will survive. Of course many of us started saying this (without the colorful metaphor) before the war and have been saying it continuously for years. Of course, I do not have the slightest doubt that it will be ignored by those who make the decisions.

Supreme Court Gets It Wrong, Twice. Oops, THRICE

Historically the Supreme Court has swung between the extremes of too much or too little power. Early in its history, it could make all the pronouncements it wanted to, but had no means to enforce its decisions. For the past few decades there have been many complaints about an "activist" court or "activist" judges, meaning of course that the complainer did not like the court's decision on a particular issue. Because the court had an obvious liberal slant up until the Bush appointments, most of those charges had come from the right. Now the shoe is on the other (left?) foot and the liberals are making the charges about "activist" judges. Of course, they are not using those words, but the complaints are the same.

So at this point I get to add my complaints. The court has made three critical decisions in the last few days, two along straight 5-4 ideological lines and one 5-3 with one recused. First they decided that using capital punishment for those convicted of child rape is "cruel and unusual" punishment, second they decided that the 2nd amendment includes the right of self-defense, and third they reduced the punitive damages from the Exxon Valdez oil spill from $2.5 billion to $500 million. It is my firmly held conviction that they are wrong on all three.

A strange thing is happening here. I am actually siding with the conservative element of the court on the capital punishment decision. Don't get me wrong. I am opposed to capital punishment. I am in full agreement with the sentiment expressed by the child who asked, "Is capital punishment when we kill people to prove that killing people is wrong?" I am absolutely convinced that violence is never an appropriate response to violence. However, I am just as convinced that if we are going to use capital punishment for any crimes, the crime of child rape ought to be included. I do not understand the logic of the majority which does not see the violence of rape used against the most helpless in our society as being worthy of the highest level of punishment. It is a rare set of circumstances which has me agreeing with Justice Samuel Alito when he said, it means the death penalty would be barred

"no matter how young the child, no matter how many times the child is raped, no matter how many children the perpetrator rapes, no matter how sadistic the crime, no matter how much physical or psychological trauma is inflicted, and no matter how heinous the perpetrator's prior criminal record may be."

Things are back to normal on the handgun decision. I am firmly in the camp of the liberal justices. Justice Scalia, speaking for the majority says, "the inherent right of self-defense has been central to the Second Amendment right." I've read the 2nd amendment many times. It is one of the shortest of the Bill of Rights, only 27 words, and I find nothing that guarantees a right of "self-defense." This is judicial activism at its best.

I am in complete agreement with Justice Stevens that "there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution."

Justice Stephen Breyer, states it even more clearly:

"The majority's conclusion is wrong for two independent reasons. The first reason is that set forth by Justice Stevens _ namely, that the Second Amendment protects militia-related, not self-defense-related, interests. These two interests are sometimes intertwined. To assure 18th-century citizens that they could keep arms for militia purposes would necessarily have allowed them to keep arms that they could have used for self-defense as well. But, self-defense alone, detached from any militia-related objective, is not the Amendment's concern.

"The second independent reason is that the protection the Amendment provides is not absolute. The Amendment permits government to regulate the interests that it serves."

And finally there is the most clear-cut example of judicial activism in favor of corporate America. Of course no one should be surprised that a Bush dominated court would protect the profits of his paymasters. The reasoning behind the decision to cut the punitive damages by 80% is that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses. Just for the record, the $500 million amounts to four days worth of profits for Exxon.

Justice Ginsburg, in dissent, declared that the court was engaging in "lawmaking" by concluding that punitive damages may not exceed what the company already paid to compensate victims for economic losses. She concluded that this was a "new law made by the court should have been left to Congress."

I find it saddening that the oil-man president's court will not stand up for the rights of children to be safe from rape but will stand up for the rights of oil companies not to be held accountable for their actions.

Worst President of Two Centuries

Only two other presidents have served in two centuries, John Adams and William McKinley. Why oh why did we end up with George Bush?

Five years ago today, George W. Bush got up on that aircraft carrier and fed us the biggest load of bullshit of his entire presidency. Not counting of course, the lies about the imminent threat from Iraq which was the whole pretext or pretense for going to war in the first place.

He told us it was "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq. Of course later he denied that he ever meant the war was over. And just today another lame comment came out of the Whitehouse.

"President Bush is well aware that the banner should have been much more specific and said `mission accomplished' for these sailors who are on this ship on their mission."

Somehow in the previous discussions of this bit of stupidity, I missed the fact that the Whitehouse had acknowledged that they paid for the banner, but only because the crew of the ship had requested it.

President Bush's flight suit posturing was a grotesque gumbo made up of equal parts arrogance, dishonesty and downright ignorance. But it was par for the course.

This whole presidency has been one "Mission Accomplished" moment after another, where our confabulator-in-chief told us how dandy things were in Iraq, how strong our economy was, how well the recovery was going in New Orleans, only for us to quickly find out how wrong he was.

Let's talk about what George Bush has really accomplished since he took office:

-The price of oil has quadrupled;
-We've seen the biggest drop in housing prices in 20 years;
-We experienced the first-ever economic expansion without a rise in median income; and
-Osama bin Laden - the guy who actually attacked us on September 11th -- is still on the loose.

It's a sad record and clear proof that Bush hasn't accomplished much of anything - and it's enough to drive you crazy to think he still has almost nine months left in the White House. Who knows what kind of damage he can do to the country on his way out.

Disclaimer: Contents freely adapted from a fund raising message from James Carville.

A Picture is worth a thousand words

No comment necessary

Can You Spell H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E ?

The shrub's latest attempt to show that he actually knows something about foreign policy reveals once again the fantasyland he has been living in for seven years. Barack Obama has promised to actually sit down and talk to leaders of countries that the shrub has done nothing but threaten or ignore. What a concept, diplomacy by talking instead of shouting or shooting. But the shrub responded, "It will send the wrong message. ... It will give great status to those who have suppressed human rights and human dignity." He obviously doesn't realize that nothing suppresses human rights and human dignity like an ill-conceived, ill-planned, ill-managed and probably ill-egal war. It makes you wonder what kind of insulation his handlers keep him wrapped up in.

IMPEACH BUSH NOW! Why? 935 Reasons

President Bush . . . and officials in his administration made 935
false statements on Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks,
according to a new study.

See the article at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22794451/from/ET/

See my post

Bush has Lied, is Lying, and Will Continue to Lie as long as people continue to listen

How many ways are there to say "I told you so?"

Avoid the rush, IMPEACH BUSH NOW!

We DO NOT Torture

If you accepted the "big lie" technique that allowed George Bush to get us into a war in Iraq, this one should be no problem for you. It's obvious that he really thinks that if he just keeps saying, somebody will believe. The sad thing is that he is right. And the worst offenders are those who should be working the hardest at defending the rights of the the poor, the sick, and the prisoners, so-called Bible-believing Christians. I do not understand how people who claim the Bible as their "only" guide for faith and practice, can so totally ignore what it actually says. They work their tight little (or not so little) fannies off to make sure that everyone has a chance to be born, but don't give a damn about what happens to them after that.

--Let's be sure that we don't use a little piece of embryonic tissue that will never be born, to help relieve the suffering of someone who is already born.

--Let's fight as hard as we can to make sure no child of moderately well-off parents gets government paid health care. Forget about the millions of poor children who will suffer because of it.

--Let's support that godly man, George W. Bush no matter how many times he lies and how many people he gets killed because somehow he fits into our poor, befuddled idea of what a Christian is supposed to be.

--Let's fight with all our might to stop campaign finance reform so that we can be sure that no one restricts our right to say what ever we chose in Jesus name.

--Let's kill a commie for Christ (oops, reached a little too far back for that one)

Compassionate???? Conservative????

President Bush vetoed legislation that would expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program complaining that the expansion was too big and would give health insurance benefits to children whose parents might be too far above the poverty line. What a concept: to deny health care to millions of poor children because some children who are not quite as poor might also get health care. Following are just a few of the comments I found from people who are outraged by the president's lack of compassion.

Jesus made healing a principal sign of his ministry and of the presence of the kingdom of God. From a biblical point of view, it is simply wrong when health becomes a commodity and accessibility depends upon wealth. . . . SCHIP is one bill – one program – to help fix the health care problem. No bill is perfect. But a bipartisan group of legislators think it is a good bill in the right direction.

To veto the bill, with no alternative plan instead - to simply abandon millions of poor children, to leave them to a market system that is failing to provide health care to enough people - is simply morally unacceptable.

Mr. President, members of the House and Senate, 9 million American children are without health care coverage this day. . . . When historians reflect back on this era, do we want to be remembered as the people who turned their backs on the uninsured children of this nation?

I think this veto has the potential of being talked about 20 years from now as part of the legacy of this administration, and it is seen as a cruel and cynical response to the needs of poor children.

I disagree with the [White House] legislative staff on all of this. Frankly, I think the president has had pretty poor advice on this. I can answer every objection that they've made, and I'm very favorable to the president. I know he's compassionate. (His words, not mine. I don't think he is concerned) I know he's concerned about these kids, but he's been sold a bill of goods. --Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)

From streetprophets.com

When a young couple have a kid with an expensive, long term disease, will they try to take away our right to fire the parents to save money on our employer health insurance costs??????
When a young couple have a kid with an expensive, long term disease, will they try to take away our right, (after the parents lose their jobs and get new ones) to deny coverage to the kid because of a pre-existing condition???????
When a young couple have a kid with an expensive, long term disease, will they try to take away our right, (after the parents lose their jobs and get new ones), (and after their application for SCHIP is denied because the parents make too much money but their kid isn't covered) to run up bills in the parents names into the millions of dollars????????
When a young couple have a kid with an expensive, long term disease, will they try to take away our right, (after the parents lose their jobs and get new ones), (and after their application for SCHIP is denied because the parents make too much money but their kid isn't covered) (and after weve run up bills in the parents names into the millions of dollars) will they demand that we loosen the bankruptcy laws??????????
God in heaven, Jesus would never stand for this lack of personal responsibility on the part of parents! How dare those Liberals!!!!!!
(This happened to a niece and nephew-in-law of mine. They both have decent jobs, health insurance that does not cover their son's hemophelia, and owe millions of dollars in health care debt that they can never repay, and can never get out from under.... Jesus would be proud.)

The words of another prophet come to mind, "Would Jesus wear a Rolex on his television show?"

Patreus or Betray Us

Yesterday the right wing pundits were all having a hissy fit because MoveOn.org ran an add which questioned Petraeus credibility. They were crowing about the great success his testimony was for Dubya and his cronies. Following is a critique of his testimony from the MoveOn folks which will convince any thinking person that Patraeus is just another part of the Big Lie that Bush has been trying to sell the country for six years.



Yesterday, General David Petraeus misled the country.

He used faulty statistics and cherry-picked intelligence to argue that American troops should stay in Iraq for the foreseeable future. The general said we're making major progress¹—and we have to stay the course. Sadly, independent assessments show that things in Iraq have gone from bad to worse (see below for more on how Petraeus stretched the truth).

Some of you have emailed to say it reminds you of the day four and a half years ago when President Bush sent General Colin Powell to the U.N. to make a trumped-up case for war.

Powell's WMDs helped justify the invasion of Iraq, and Petraeus' version of "progress"—if it goes unchallenged—will justify keeping troops there for years. Can you take a few minutes to write a letter-to-the editor reminding folks that the "surge" didn't work—and that the responsible thing to do is bring our troops home?

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=84&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=2

Petraeus based much of his assessment on the claim that violence in Iraq is dropping.² That just isn't true:

• Petraeus is using "funny math." According to the Washington Post, Petraeus and the Pentagon are using a bizarre formula for measuring violence in the country. For example, deaths by car bombs don't count.³ And assassinations count only if you're shot in the back of the head—not in the front.⁴
  
• Iraqis believe the surge has failed. According to a massive new ABC/BBC poll, every single Iraqi polled in Baghdad, the primary target of the "surge," said it had made security worse. Iraqis themselves overwhelmingly think the situation in Iraq is deteriorating, in terms of security, political cooperation, the economy, and other measures. Overall, 70% think the escalation worsened rather than improved security conditions. ⁵
• The independent GAO report found that violence is up. A comprehensive Government Accountability Office report ordered by Congress found that "average number of daily attacks against civilians have remained unchanged from February to July 2007."⁶ In August, things got worse, with civilian casualties rising according to the Associated Press⁷ and the Los Angeles Times.⁸
• For our troops, it's the bloodiest summer yet. More U.S. troops died every month this year compared to the same month last year.⁹
  

Petraeus claimed that he compiled his report without conferring with the White House. But the Washington Post recently reported that Petraeus or his staff joined daily conference calls with the White House and former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie this summer to "map out ways of selling the surge." The Post reported that Gillespie's White House political unit was "hard-wired" to Petraeus' military unit.¹⁰

We would all like to see life improving in Iraq. But it's not—it's getting worse. And if US forces stay in Iraq both Americans and Iraqis will pay a terrible price.

Today is the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in American history. The wounds of 9/11 are still fresh for many of us. After 9/11, President Bush used fear, lies and trumped-up intelligence to stampede us into Iraq. Now, America is bogged down in an unwinnable civil war, and Al Qaeda has regained enough strength to once again menace the United States.¹¹

It would be a tragic irony if, six years later, the administration used skewed intelligence to head off the growing momentum for an exit strategy from Iraq.

Please write a letter reminding America and Congress not to fall, ever again, for White House lies—we need a timeline to bring our troops home.

http://pol.moveon.org/lte?campaign_id=84&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=3

Thanks for all that you do,

–Nita, Karin, Laura, Eli, and the MoveOn.org Political Action Team
Tuesday, September 11th, 2007

P.S. Yesterday, MoveOn members sponsored an ad in the New York Times debunking Petraeus' claims. Click here to see the ad—and the evidence to back it up:
http://pol.moveon.org/petraeus.html?id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=4

The ad stirred a controversy on Capitol Hill—it accuses Petraeus of "cooking the books." And it charges that Petraeus is betraying the American peoples' trust by spinning the facts to support the White House. Some Democrats were uncomfortable with such strong language, and Republicans attacked MoveOn.

We're sure if we'd run an ad debunking Colin Powell's testimony in 2003, they would have done the same thing—but sometimes it's important to set the facts straight.

SOURCES
1. Washington Post, "Petraeus Backs Initial Pullout," 9/11/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2958&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=5 2. Ibid.
3. New York Times, "Time to Take a Stand," 9/7/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2941&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=6
4. Washington Post, "Experts Doubt Drop in Violence in Iraq," 9/6/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2938&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=7
5. ABC News, "Iraqis' Own Surge Assessment," 9/10/07
http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=3571504
6. Washington Post, "Experts Doubt Drop in Violence in Iraq," 9/6/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2938&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=8
7. Associated Press, "1,809 Iraqi civilians killed in August," 9/1/07
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20543737/
8. Los Angeles Times, "Iraqi civilian deaths climb again," 9/1/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2956&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=9
9. http://www.iCasualties.org
10. Washington Post, "Among Top Officials, 'Surge' Has Sparked Dissent, Infighting," 9/9/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2957&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=10
11. Washington Post, "Scarier than Bin Laden," 9/9/07
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=2959&id=11221-8292763-PChjRg&t=11

Fool Me Once . . .

As Dubya tried to say one time, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." If there is anyone out there still being fooled about "progress" in Iraq, it is because they want to be fooled. See

http://pol.moveon.org/troopshome/?id=11197-8292763-A7ozWt&t=3

Don't fall for the Whitehouse spin on whatever next weeks report might say. The truth is American troops are their few allies are being killed everyday because Iraqis are fighting Iraqis. They will not take responsibility for their own security as long as we are doing it for them. We need to start bringing the troops home today and not stop until they are all out of harm's way.

Two Down, ? to Go!

Are these two rats leaving a sinking ship?

Who cares, as long as they are leaving.

Impeach Now Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy

The title may be a little scary but those are not my words. They belong to an old-time Reagan republican who finally recognizes what some of us "liberals" have been warning you about. Bush is an imperialist and not just internationally. He continues to abuse the power of the executive branch for his personal goals and ambitions. Read the frightening analysis of the latest presidential power grab at Or Face the End of Constitutional Democracy Impeach Now By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS



Roberts says

Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran.

If this column does not make the hairs on the back of your neck stick straight out you have to be counted among those he describes as

"a diehard minority" who still believe "in the honesty and integrity of the Bush-Cheney administration and in the truthfulness of the corporate media."

There is no reason to wait and every reason to fear what Bush and his crew may try to pull off before we can vote someone else into office.

George Bush Hates America

I heard on the radio this morning that a critic referred to George Bush as "brain-dead" in response to the Scooter Libby fiasco. Some of those on the panel thought this kind of language was a little too extreme to use for a sitting president. Well, I've gone way past that. I fully believe that George Bush hates the America that most of us love. You don't have to agree with me, but you do have to seriously consider the things he has done to try to undermine the whole system of government. All you really have to consider are his supreme court nominees. Specifically, if he cared about the way the court is supposed to operate why would he have ever considered nominating Harriet Myers. At least in that case there was enough public outcry to make him withdraw the nomination. His nominations for attorney general were, are, and will be a total disgrace. Ashcroft was an absolute failure, but at least he seemed to honest and knew that the wiretaps were illegal. Gonzales is not only a failure, but a liar. How sad it is when the man who is supposed to lead the "Justice" department has no concept of what justice means. His nominee to the UN was designed to undermine the US presence there. The few people of quality that he allowed into his cabinet have resigned in disgust. General after general has resigned from the military so they can openly comment on the fiasco in the defense department. Who can forget, "way to go, Brownie." I could go on but it's too depressing. I hope the country can survive another year and a half in the hands of a man who hates what it stands for.

Help Stop Censorship at CBS

From the Moveon.org folks,

Remember when shock-jock Don Imus used racist and misogynistic terms to refer to a women's college basketball team? Well, it took CBS two weeks to fire him for that but it only took them TWO DAYS to fire a respected General from Iraq for speaking out against the president on the war.

CBS shouldn't be censoring or firing people for speaking their mind. I signed a petition urging CBS to re-hire General Batiste -- can you join me at the link below?

http://pol.moveon.org/batiste/?r_by=-8292763-amvLeI&rc=paste
There's more information on the firing on that page, too.

Thanks!

The Ongoing Iraq Intel Fraud

After my rant on the lies of George Bush I was directed to this article which lays out the facts of the lies about the Iraq war much more thorougly than I was capable of. If anyone you know still gives the president the benefit of any kind of doubt, refer them to this article.

The Ongoing Iraq Intel Fraud

Why no one in congress is seriously addressing this issue I don't know. The leadership seems to be content to study the issues to death. But as I heard a man say in a different context recently, "When you study something to death, death is not your goal." Unfortunatley while they are studying people keep dying. I don't care what it takes, GET THE TROOPS OUT, BRING THEM HOME.